Megahome MH943TWS 4L Countertop Water Distiller with Polypropylene Collection Bottle

I use it once a day to fill 2 of my air humidifiers

[SIX YEAR UPDATE: 2/6/2016 - Our water distiller is still going strong after six plus years of use. When we wrote the original review we had no expectations of this appliance, that's been run daily distilling either one or two gallons of water, to last this long - with no repairs or replacement parts. We were pleased with the distiller back then, and now, in this era of planned obsolescence and "mean average time to failure" equipment, we are beyond amazement at this well made appliance. Perhaps we are just lucky at the longevity of our distiller, but we felt it was worth mentioning.]Original Review:Where we live the water is bad looking and bad tasting, and our home has old galvanized piping and copper with joints that are lead soldered. We've been buying bottled drinking water for the past couple of decades.The cost of bottled water keeps going up in price. Pulling out the calculator, we estimated that our family's bottled drinking water consumption, at current bottled water prices, is costing around six hundred dollars a year!The economics of the matter was quite clear; despite the initial cost and the electricity to run the appliance, a water distiller would save us money and effort over buying and hauling water from the store.Enter the distiller.We bought a water distiller and have been making a couple of gallons of distilled water a day since it arrived. The distiller works very well with little oversight or interaction needed, though it needs occasional descaling and rinsing, and you must be careful when working with the appliance when it is hot.The method for using the distiller is dirt simple: Fill the tank with water to the line, place the cooling/steam recovery tower on top of the boiler tank, put the water collection bottle under the water drain, plug the appliance in, and walk away. Then, come back later to pour the freshly distilled water into your water storage container of choice.Other reviewers have noted the problem with large amounts of scale residue left in the boiler tank after distillation, and we noticed the same thing especially with the crappy water we start with. We partially solved the problem of scale residue by buying a "pitcher style" water filter and using that as a quick "pre-filter" to remove much of the sediment, chemicals, and other impurities, and then pouring the filtered water in the distiller. We now filter the water before we add it to the distiller.(Note that "pitcher style" water filters are only rated for removing a portion of the contaminants found in the average municipal water supply, and for us is no substitute for the purity of distilled water. Using a pitcher type water filter as a "pre-filter" for your distiller adds to the final cost per gallon of distilled water when you factor in the replacement cost of filters.)We noticed that the "pre-filtered" distilled water tastes better, as the pitcher style water filter uses activated charcoal to filter water before it goes into the distiller. The "pre-filter" method has cut down on most of the baked on sediment and residue that coated the bottom and sides of the distiller, making boiler tank cleaning a much more infrequent necessity and saving us time and trouble.(Even after filtering the water with a "pitcher style" water filter like those advertised on television, the quantity of residue left in the distiller tank is amazing.)We also followed the advice of other reviewers and now use a heavy duty appliance timer to turn off the distiller after five hours of running, and that leaves about a half inch of water in the bottom of the tank so the sediment and residue remains dissolved and doesn't cook to the tank.One caution: Wait a good half hour or more after turning the distiller off (pulling the plug) before removing the top "cooling tower". A distiller is nothing more than a boiler, and it gets very hot and contains lots of high temperature steam that can burn you quickly. Wait for the machine to cool before handling.We have the distiller on a kitchen counter and we don't find the fan noise obnoxious or disturbing, but it does make a noticeable sound.The best advantage of the water distiller is we no longer have to haul gallons and gallons of drinking water home every week from the store! We have arrived in the twenty-first century; finally, we have clean drinking water on tap.=============================Two (2) year update:Our distiller is still going strong with constant use, distilling at least one, and often two gallons of water a day and it still works as good as new. We're very pleased to the point where we are adding this update with our latest observations about this excellent appliance.Before we made the purchase two years ago through Amazon, we factored in all of the costs in a spreadsheet to see if buying a water distiller made economic sense, and at the time we determined it would take two years of use for the distiller to work out being cheaper than buying store-brand distilled water in gallon containers. If you break down the costs for the distiller unit based on the number of gallons you use per year divided by the cost of the unit, then add in the electrical cost (distiller wattage times number of hours to distill a gallon of water, times cost per watt hour charged by your electric company), you will arrive at a cost per gallon of distilled water.We determined that the distiller's cost per gallon was around seventy-one cents per gallon, after two years producing two gallons per day. Two years ago, distilled water was selling for around eighty-three cents a gallon at the grocery store, so it made sense to buy the distiller if it would last at least two years, and we are please to report that the distiller has indeed lasted two years and is still going strong.You should be aware that your distiller might require special maintenance (beyond regularly descaling the interior boiler compartment with white vinegar), as described below:The upper section, the removable top of the unit which is the steam recovery area, has a small fan to draw outside air through a series of fins attached to a long curved water tube that captures the steam and then cools and condenses it back into water to drip into the glass collection container. The closely spaced cooling fins can collect dust when air is pulled through the upper unit by the fan. To remove the dust build up, there are three (3) screws that can be unscrewed to remove the outer plastic cover of the upper unit, giving access to the interior fan and water cooling section with the attached fins.It is quite simple and easy to clean the upper section: Remove the three screws (gently pry back the rubber sealing ring to expose the screw heads), and take the two sections apart. Then rinse the solid plastic cover to remove any accumulated dust. Be careful with the section containing the water cooling fins and the electric fan - we used a small dusting brush with soft bristles to successfully remove all of the built up dust that had worked its way into the upper system and into the fins surrounding the cooling tube. Once all of the dust was removed we screwed the unit back together and put the distiller back to work.Our distiller sits on a section of kitchen counter close to an outside window, and we were surprised to find that after a couple of years use there was a substantial amount of dust build up inside the upper cooling tower. Possibly our unit is pulling dust from the outside that's being captured in the cooling fins, but this is something you might want to monitor to ensure there's no dust build up in your machine. Dust build up along the cooling fins will reduce the efficiency of the water recovery tower.We recommend this appliance to anyone looking to save their back and their wallet by processing their own pure water at home.

Easy to use, simple to clean, lets see how long it lasts

I live in the country where the well water is the only choice unless you want to make that regular investment into bottled water. I did use the Poland Spring water for few years but things went down hill once Nestle started their big water acquisition. Price that was already not so cheap got jacked up yet again and the service and attitude of the costumer service went beyond offensive. That's when I decided to check out the alternatives and got myself and under the counter 2 stage water filter. Our water is not that bad and the filter improved it significantly. Well, it was not perfect but it was perfectly acceptable. We went 2+ years doing fine with filtered water but the taste felt like it could still use some improvement. That's when I decided to give distilled water a try. While I knew it will taste flat and all, I figured I could improve that.Ordered my unit about two months ago and I love my water since then. Unit is pretty simple and will give you about a gallon of distilled water in a glass jar after 5.5 to 6 hours and it does that without any problems that I can tell. Noise is not a problem which is not much anyway. I jsut didn't care for the quality of glass collecting jug. The glass is the worst quality with multiple bubbles build into, which compromises the integrity of the jug. They have a lame story attached to the jug saying "it is hand made and the imperfections are normal and expected, etc". They probably buy rejects from a glass manufacturer who is really bad at making glass..I setup myself a water station in the basement and I don't even know that it is running. I set it up with a gallon filtered water (I guess I would work perfectly fine with tap water as well but I like additional assurance on the VOC stuff) and next day in the morning I have a gallon of distilled water.Now, there are few tricks to the process to produce your own designer water!1. As it was hinted in some of the other reviews, you don't want to run out of water in the reservoir. So, that was easily taken care of connecting the unit to a timer and let it stop after 5.5 hours. Once you fill it to the max. fill line you will end up with a glass of water left in the reservoir by the time system stops and that prevents the foul taste in the final product.2. Once you got your distilled water and taste it, you won't like it cause it has no personality. Reason being all the minerals that gives your water it's distinct personality has been left behind along the effort of removing the not so wanted ones. No problem. Just add 8 to 10 drops of ConcenTrace Trace Minerals into your water. Mineral aspect is now addressed. However, we still have the issue PH. Distilled water is very hungry, so as it drips into the glass jar it will attract and bind with lots of CO2, creating the end result of a very acidic how PH water in the range of 5.5 to 6. Both for benefit and taste purposes you want your water to alkaline with a PH rating of 7.4 to 7.6. This can be easily achieved by the good old arm and hammer baking soda. You have to go easy on the baking soda cause it is very potent. I use a 1/8 measuring spoon and add about 1/5 of it. If you like to confirm your work you simply use a PH tested sold in pet stores for water PH tester that handles the range of 5.5 to 7.8.That's all, you just made a gallon of excellent tasting water.The only down side the whole process is that I have to make another fresh gallon every other day. I wish there would be a resonably priced unit that would produce 5 gallons at a time.So, if you can live with the not so much up to the standards glass container quality (I can) it is a pretty good deal. Your gallon of water will cost you somewhere in th vicinity of 30 to 40 cents in electricity and a negligable amount for the minerals and the baking soda.

Pour deux raisons, l'eau distillé et la rendre potable